


It’s A Loneliness That Makes Me Burn Inside

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst part is thinking of how differently things could have gone if that day had never happened, imagining a different life where everyone was alive and okay, and there was no monster inside of him, eating him alive. For Bruce, knowing his life was never meant to go this way was the worst part, but he also knew, few were the ones that got a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s A Loneliness That Makes Me Burn Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I totally blame [Edith and her drawing](http://iwantmyburd.tumblr.com/post/14400211259). This started as me talking about Bruce being lonely, then it shifted to Bruce and Clint's relationship and now it's just me babbling because BRUCE DESERVES ALL THE HAPPINESS OKAY.

The worst part is thinking of how differently things could have gone if that day had never happened, imagining a different life where everyone was alive and okay, and there was no monster inside of him, eating him alive. For Bruce, knowing his life was never meant to go this way was the worst part, but he also knew, few were the ones that got a choice.

One of the things that come with being incredibly different, with being dangerous to all living and breathing creatures is that you have no choice, except to be alone. At first Bruce was alone because he was scared of hurting others even more than he had already, then he was alone because he had to run and never look back, but after a while he was alone because he didn’t know to be with people anymore, because he was afraid of society.

He told himself it was easier that way, to just stand back behind the new team, the new family, as they all got better acquainted with each other. He stood in the shadows, hoping no one would notice him and waiting for whatever inevitable accident he was going to cause. Because Bruce knew, he was going to do something, he was going to mess up and somebody would definitely get hurt because of him, that’s how things always work for Bruce, and that’s how he expects things to always be. But it’s okay, he’s learned to accept that, Bruce has learned to accept lots of things. 

The thing is, this time Bruce wasn’t alone. He had no choice but to be around  others, and no matter how much he tried to hide and to avoid them, they were all bound to get closer to him whether he wanted them to or not. So Bruce let them, because Captain America practically gave him puppy eyes whenever Bruce ate dinner alone instead of eating with the rest of the team in the living room, because Iron Man appeared whenever he bloody wanted in Bruce’s lab and started casual chats about nuclear physics like it was a totally normal thing to do, because the God of Thunder kept constantly inviting him to play tennis on the TV with him, because the Black Widow taught Bruce new kinds of Yoga and meditation, because Hawkeye was there.

 _ Clint _ . If Bruce had to blame things on anyone, he would blame them on Clint. With his stupid smile, and his stupid jokes, and his stupid confidence that was so obviously fake to Bruce but completely oblivious to everyone else. Bruce reckons they started talking because they saw through each other as if they were looking at crystal glass, because there was no one else.

Their relationship was kind of a hazy mess, if it could be called that, it’s not like they ever officialised things, not like they ever made some kind of huge announcement to the world that were ‘gay and proud’, that they kissed tenderly on lazy hours of the morning and talked to each other until Clint quietly fell asleep on Bruce’s lap. No, it was more like, one day they weren’t, next day there were, but neither of them knew what day it was.

Point being, their relationship was a hazy, delightful, surprising and terrifying, mess. It depended on your perspective of it. The Avengers all seemed to be very happy with their arrangements, but their opinion didn’t count because everyone with at least half a brain knows the Avengers are all doomed lunatics, with no sense of boundaries or fear of imminent death. To SHIELD it was a disaster waiting to happen, they even had a protocol installed in case something really happened, what that something might be Bruce never truly knew though he was rather certain it would be because of him. And to the rest of the world, well, it was nothing. Because they didn’t knew, and neither did they need to know.

The Hulk and Hawkeye weren’t big fancy heroes whose faces cover the front pages of all the magazines, they were a different kind of heroes that busted their asses and never truly got a worthy ‘thank you’. Not that either of them minded, neither Bruce nor Clint were very big fans of attention, and in Bruce’s opinion if something did indeed happen, it would be much easier to live with it for the rest of his life without the whole world judging him too.

Oh, and that was definitely something that annoyed the hell out of Bruce, because while he accepted with a point blank face that he was going to mess things up and there was no question about it, Clint quite simply refused to even think about it. He always said, no matter what, Bruce would never hurt him, and that was the end of the discussion.

Bruce tried to fight him on this a couple of times, but he was always afraid of getting his blood pulse elevated so he never pushed things. Instead he lived on the constant dooming fear of whatever horrible thing he was going to do, and in the past, this fear would have eaten Bruce alive. It would have burned him inside and driven him mad, because it was so real, so provocative and maddening, how could it not?

Except that Bruce wasn’t in the past anymore. He wasn’t in the shadows, behind carefully built walls that served only to shun him away from society, he wasn’t hidden in his own mind like he used to be. He was part of a team, a family, a group of people that were all a bit broken, just like him. People who lived to save the world and who sometimes didn’t really know why, and for the first time in a very long time, Bruce had somewhere he belonged in, and most of all, he had someone to love.


End file.
